Host: Heather Volchko
Guest: Matthew Hayes
All right. I’m super excited because this month I have got Matthew with us. Matthew does a lot of work with DEIA, so diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. He does some work with some government agencies as well as with youth mentoring. And so he bridges a whole bunch of different types of organizations and works at the kid level and the systems level somewhat simultaneously. So I’m excited to see where the conversations this month go. We’re talking about all things culture, so we’re going to hit that from a bunch of different angles, but this year, we are focusing primarily on organizational culture and what that looks like.
So welcome, Matthew. Super glad you’re hanging with me.
Thank you. I’m super excited as well. This is going to be great.
Well, let’s kick it off. I mean, we’re talking about culture, organizational culture. Like, what is that? How does that show up for you?
Yeah. So when I think about it, I mean, it’s a bit intangible, right? And I think that’s the most interesting part about culture, is that it’s not something you just be like. It’s not a metric, like everything else, where it’s like, okay, you know, how much do we make this month, or how many employees work in this group? It’s kind of that invisible thing. And I’ll just think about this morning. I left my house and I was going to grab coffee, and as I was pulling out of my driveway, my neighbor was in their driveway, and I’m turning down the street and I’m starting to drive by.
And for some reason, I raise my hand and I start to wave to my neighbor, who’s outside of my car, that I have not communicated with. And simultaneously, for some reason, my neighbor also turns around and waves at me. And it’s like we didn’t communicate. There was no verbal anything between us, but there was something that made us both look at each other in that moment and wave. And it’s like that type of stuff, for me, is where I see culture show up in terms of what are the unspoken agreements, how do we behave and treat each other, even when it’s not an expectation, even when it’s not clearly defined, like, what are the methods of operation? So I think culture is honestly one of my more favorite things to talk about, because it’s really what drives everything, right? Whether it’s a sports team or a group or a neighborhood or you know, a culture itself, right? Like an ethnicity group.
Right? Like culture, of kind of, how do we interact? How do we see things? What’s our joint or kind of group perspectives? What are our belief systems, what are our values? And how do all these things start to interact with each other to produce something, whatever said something is. right? So, yeah, culture is really, really fun because it’s the space where you have a lot of control and no control simultaneously.
And especially when you look at it from a leadership lens, the relationship between a leader and culture is so symbiotic, I think. It’s definitely a handshake where one influences the other and. Yeah, because, you know, I just think about different groups that I’ve been a part of and how even when I think back to an old work experience and the work that I was doing was so good, like, really, really cool, inspiring work, and I actually had a big desire to do the work myself, but the gap between me and my desire to do the work and the work itself was my leader, and the leader was a bit of an interesting person, which made me actually have less desire to do the work that I was passionate about because I wanted to get away from the leader.
So, like, there may be good ingredients in place, but with the wrong leader in place, it can kind of start to be a fire extinguisher to an entire organization that has momentum. So there’s a lot in there. Yeah. I’m curious your thoughts. And then maybe we’ll just dive a little deeper.
Well, I love the way that you’re framing this, though, because it’s so obvious. You can feel it, you can sense it, you can see it, but then at the same time, it’s really hard to quantify and really hard to put specific definitions on. Or, like, here’s exactly what you need to do to have this outcome. It’s not that clean, but at the same time, the experience seems so palpable, and so it’s this wild combination of things that feels like it should be all of it, but it’s never the same two things.
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Culture is the space where you have a lot of control and no control simultaneously.
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Yeah, exactly. I mean, there’s so many pieces and intricacies, and I think you said it really perfectly, of like, the feeling, and that would be such a big kind of tuning fork of what is the culture wherever I’m at, just self-reflect on how do I feel here? What does it feel like? Do I feel like I belong? Do I feel like I’m a part of something? Does it feel like my opinions are valued? Does someone even ask my opinion?
All those little pieces that sometimes we can just get so complacent and comfortable with under some expectation or this we say that like, oh, that’s common sense so often. But, like, that’s not a real thing because when we look at diversity and inclusion and all these things, no one has the same commonality, right? We all have our own personal subjective perspectives and, like, coming to the table to ask those questions and to bring those perspectives and those viewpoints and opinions to the table, that creates a certain culture.
Right? And I think that culture comes with failure. It comes with discomfort. It comes with disagreement. It comes with friction, it comes with change. But we also have to have the right expectation of where are we going. And I think that probably starts the conversation for most groups and most organizations of, well, let’s get aligned first with where we’re going, and then now to let’s build the culture. Let’s build the environment around kind of having a tuning fork in the center.
Yeah, well, and what you’re talking about, though, too, I think, is in kind of my experience is hitting a few different things because in schools, a lot of times we’ll talk about climate and culture. There’s a big buzzword with administration because they’re in charge of creating that feel of their building, right? And there’s a lot of research and interventions. And, I mean, there’s different, you know, packages you can buy and staff surveys you can implement and like, all these, you know, very specific or prescriptive types of either interventions or metrics, things out there.
And then that also really fits with, like, my background in behavior analysis, right? So I can see the behavior, you can measure change, right? And in behavior analysis, there’s a big school of camp that says, well, emotions, they’re feelings, they’re not behavior, right? It’s all this internal secret stuff. You can’t see that. You can’t count that. You can’t, like, measure that. And then when you line that up with my program evaluation side, right? Well, that’s all metrics, right? So, how are you actually measuring as a building leader if I’m creating an environment or a space in which my people feel these things?
So I understand we’re, you know, as leaders, we are setting up the environment, we’re setting up those situations, either those interactions or just like the way of, you know, business as usual, kind of how that shows up. I’m kind of measuring the internal experience of my people. But I mean, especially if I don’t actually have, you know, I’ve worked in these places where I don’t have that safety, if some people call it psychological safety, or there’s all kinds of different, you know, buzzword versions of that out there right now.
But I’m not going to tell you my internal experience. I’m just not going to, right? Or if I am, it’s going to be watered down or communicated in a way that’s maybe not giving you the full picture of what’s going on. Well, now, if that’s the metric that I’m using to measure as a leader, if what I’m doing is working or not, oh, gosh, like, that’s really messy. It’s not clean enough, right? To say, like, is what I’m doing working?
Like, how do I actually pull these things together so that as a leader, I know that what I’m doing is actually creating either the environment that I want, or I will be honest and say sometimes the environment that I’m told that I’m supposed to be creating, even as a leader, if that’s not something that I myself am comfortable with. I think you and I have both walked through some very interesting conversations with leaders that are going, I mean, I hear this is sort of what I’m supposed to be leading or the environment that I’m supposed to be creating, but, like, I don’t know that I’m fully on board with that, right? So then all of a sudden, I’m leading in ways that maybe don’t sit with me, but it’s sort of what I’m supposed to do. But then, how do I know if what I’m doing is actually doing any of those things?
And especially if I’m not getting good feedback on it, right? Like, that’s just such a messy thing to say. How can we quantify and make it so clear to say, here’s what culture is and here’s, as a leader, how I can set up my people to think these things and feel these things so that then we can have these, you know, either experiences or work products, kind of depending on what those organizational metrics may be.
But how do we do that in a way that, like, sits with us as leaders? You know, we all have different leadership styles and, you know, how do we fit that into then also creating that space for those other people around us that maybe, like, we’re in charge of, but some of them could be co-leaders in a variety of different spaces. Like, how do we get all of this to fit together in a way that can truly position our organization or our building or our team, you know, whatever that group may be, to actually have an effective, efficient, safe culture that people then can actually just thrive in and just be amazing and do their thing.
Yeah, that’s so many good points you shared because it highlighted in my mind, intersectionality.
Thank you.
Often when we think about that, we think about it in terms of personal pieces, but also cultural intersectionality, because if I grow up a certain way, I have this experience of how I’m supposed to behave based on my parents' training and teaching of me. But then I also go to a certain school, and that school has a way to behave. And then when I leave that school, I maybe go to an after-school program, which teaches me a certain way to behave.
So internally, I can grow up with 5, 6, 20 different cultural experiences and different standards and expectations of how I’m supposed to show up here and how I’m supposed to show up there. And, like, even this morning, for example, I went to one of my mentees' graduations, and he graduated. He’s been working hard to, like, finish his degree up. And, you know, they had a graduation this morning. And. And while I’m there, you know, I don’t necessarily have the background that says, shout out from the audience and start screaming.
That’s not necessarily my personality style or my cultural background. However, there are people sitting right next to me, and when their friend or, you know, family member gets called on stage, they’re screaming and yelling and go on, we love you, shout-outs to you, right? And, you know, in that moment, internally, I have this dialogue that goes on that says there’s permission in this space to shout out, this person next to me who shouted out.
Yet for some reason, internally, I don’t necessarily feel comfortable with that. And there’s an interaction in this moment of three different cultures, the culture of the space of the graduation ceremony, the culture that the person sitting next to me brings to the table. And then how I then fit my background and experience into that scenario to figure out, well, what role do I play? And then I also think about, well, does my mentee feel supported if I don’t shout out?
Right? And then how does that impact his internal culture? Right? So there’s so many things when it comes to the intersectionality of this conversation. And I think one of the biggest pieces comes down to what is our expectation? Because the expectation of the work, the expectation of the conversation, right? If I’m a leader, for example, because I know we kind of want to focus this conversation in kind of leadership spaces and dynamics.
I’m the leader of the group, kind of when I look at the environment and as I go into it, am I expecting it to be some metric-driven group? And sure, maybe, you know, especially in a business case, I need performance. That is, that is not negotiable, right? That is how a business runs. That’s how I move from quarter to quarter to quarter. Things need to improve, grow, preferably. Obviously, there’s ups and downs. That’s natural.
But as a leader, I need to shift my perspective and expectations from being a manager to being a leader. And those are two different conversations. And unfortunately, in today’s society, a lot of times our leaders are simply glorified managers because we internally promote, and they come from the person who is really, really good at screwing the bolts. And they became the team lead of the person who screws the bolts, who became the director of the people who screw the bolts, who became the manager of the people who do, like. And it’s not that they were necessarily a really great leader.
They were really proficient at their skill set. But as you move through those different ranks and create new responsibilities, I need to shift the perspective appropriately that when I get into that role now, my job is to take care of the people, right? And the people and the culture that they feel, because that’s going to ultimately drive their performance. So it’s that internal kind of mindset shift, of kind of.
I saw a video on Instagram the other day of a snake shedding its skin, and that’s kind of the visual that comes up because, you know, as we’re going from one space to the next, we do have to shed a certain level of thought process and kind of move into a renewed way of approaching problems.
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Culture comes with failure, discomfort, disagreement, friction, and change.
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Well, I think what you’re sharing, I think a lot of people use manager and leader synonymously, and I think you’re sort of calling out that that’s different. And, I mean, like, even managers can manage things or managers can manage people, right? But they’re typically managing some kind of a process or a manageable output or something like that, whereas a leader kind of has to just create the space in which the work can just be done. And so I’m thinking, you know, in school settings, there are definitely moments where building leaders and district leaders just need to manage the work to get it accomplished, right? And part of that is managing the people and the processes and the systems, and we just got to get this stuff done, and do we have all the right timelines and products and people, like, is it all aligned in a way, and it’s just going to happen.
But then sometimes it’s allowing the space for the work to be defined and for the work to happen, right? I know in schools, especially, this time of year, we’ve got, we’re slammed with state testing and all these big metrics that are big and scary and are directly linked to funding streams and all these things. So that’s a clear metric that is being measured, but it isn’t clean in the sense of here, then let me set up all those perfect processes to get me straight to that result.
And that’s where I think I’m hearing you saying more with leadership, it’s how can I create the space? How can I really facilitate a culture in which all of these other people can somewhat kind of become their own managers to get that work through whatever that direction may be that we have, then kind of, you know, collectively come toward to actually get it moving. But gosh, that is such a different skill set, right? Like, it is a very different skill set to say, okay, project management style.
Here are my people, here are my things, here are my timelines. Let’s line it up and make it happen. Versus, I need to facilitate an ambiguous space that I can’t necessarily define, or I’m just going to read your reactions to tell me if what I’m doing is working for you, and then I’m hoping that then that’s going to result in actionable work and you know? That’s so different and so messy, and I think you’re right: A lot of people do just sort of get moved up and somewhere along the lines, the skill set that’s needed for those roles are, are different.
I think sometimes in schools, it’s actually the same person, and different parts of their job actually lend more to managing, and some parts lend more to leading. And it can be hard to figure out which hat am I wearing? Which then means, which skill set do I need? Which means I need to look at each situation. And that’s where, for me, I’m big in contextual behavioral science. You’re talking about, like, read the room, right?
So based on what’s going on in the room now, I need to apply this set of behaviors or skills versus this other room, I need to apply a different set of skills or a different set of behaviors, and I need to make that decision and kind of fit my, what I have to bring to the table kind of differently depending on those different spaces. But it’s so hard to figure out, you know, like, which, which version of what do I need here? And how do I actually position myself to just be a manager? To just be a leader, and sometimes that makes us both.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as you’re talking, the phrase that popped up in my head is “Lead always. Manage when necessary.”
Yes. Yes. You and I’ve talked about this.
And I feel like if I can always maintain the role of the leader, and if I need to step in and be a manager, great, I can. I’ll give direction. But really, that leader, creating that space where there’s buy in, where people see their value, where they understand that, you know? You know, I think about, I’m from California, so I’m a big Lakers fan, and the Lakers have had a couple superstar players be on their team.
But the thing that is always so important is to remember that one player is still on the team. And even if I’m the leader in the organization, I’m still a part of the culture, I’m still a part of the team. Although positions might be different and office numbers might be different, there is no ranking or hierarchy in terms of value and contribution. So when I can always understand, I’ll tell you. Probably one of the biggest skill sets for leaders to learn is humility, because most people, they take those roles, and it, and it ups their ego, it ups their pride, and they feel sometimes when promoted and they know that they may not be ready for it, then they start to feel like they have to overemphasize their leadership.
And now I have to be a manager to compensate for my lack of leadership. And when I can actually come into a space with humility and say, hey, I don’t know everything, and I’m not the smartest person in the room, that’s why you’re here. What do you think? Right? And understand that as a leader, like you said, I am just the biggest facilitator of change, and I’m just here to help get you the resources.
And even, I know there’s something we’ve talked about in the past, different types of leadership, right? And one of the, you know, there’s a couple different approaches. And, you know, and not to say that one is worse or better than the other, they’re all needed in different times, right? Like, if you’re an authoritarian leader who’s kind of demanding, right? You might be able to get stuff done, but you also might lose your people.
So, you know, you might hit your deadline, but then how much does it cost you, and how much time does it cost you to have to rebound from all the turnover every time?
I think, like, let me add into that, though, because, like, some of that comes down to even in the hiring process. If I know I’m a certain kind of leader, that means I know I’m going to work better with certain kinds of people. That also means, on the interviewing side, going, like, if I’m looking for somewhere to work, well, now I know what I need. What do I respect in a leader? Well, now I need to get a feel for is that you, like, on the other side of the table here?
Are you that kind of a leader? Because I’ve definitely seen those situations where the mismatch has nothing to do with the skillset. It has everything to do with kind of that leadership dynamic set, and it’s just a mismatch. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just how I view and respect leaders is not your leadership style. And so all of a sudden, you and I are no longer a fit. We could be great in terms of whatever we’re trying to do, but there’s that mismatch and kind of that perspective around leadership.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s just like dating, kind of, sort of. You can be two really great individual people, but it doesn’t mean it’s a good fit, because I remember a conversation just a week or two ago with someone who was looking for a promotion at a certain job, and they were trying to be, like, a director’s right-hand person. And the person and the director actually were good friends. They’d known each other for a long time. They knew each other’s work.
But the person didn’t get the promotion. Somebody else did. So they went to the leader and said, Hey, you know, I thought, I thought this would have been a good fit, like, what happened here? And the leader said, We’re too much alike. They’re like, I need someone who’s the opposite of me. I like you. I love you actually! You’re a great friend of mine, and ideally, I would love for you to be in the position, but I just know that we’re the same, and if both of us. I need someone who’s going to hold me accountable.
I need someone who’s going to challenge me, and we’re too similar.
So, isn’t that such a cool leadership statement, though? Right? Like, how many leaders? Yes, but how many leaders, like, surround themselves almost seemingly by choice with yes people? Right? I know you see things like I do. So you’re going to agree with me, which means, whatever, I think we’re going to be able to get through. And for that leader to say no, I want dissenting opinions. I want conflict because that will actually create and feel better things than what I, myself, or my own, like, view can actually get, you know, me or us, to. Like, how cool is that as just a leadership perspective?
That’s everything. Yeah. That level of self-awareness to really back to the state of humility. Right. Is my focus is not me. My focus is the group. My focus is the organization. My focus is how do we actually move the needle forward with whatever we’re trying to accomplish. And it’s not just going to be my opinion that does that. And I have to know that from the jump that my role as a leader is really to turn back around and take care of the team.
So when I have the right perspective, when I have the right expectation, you know what? It impacts the culture in a major way because people can feel it, because it goes back to feelings. And when I feel good and when I feel like I belong, now I want to perform for you. Now I want to fight for you. Now I want to make you proud, right? And together, when we have that kind of culture built in where the leader wants to take care of the people and the people have the back of the leader, and we’re all fighting towards the same cause, it’s not about the name on the back of the jersey, it’s about the name on the front of the jersey. That becomes a thing that now we become a dynasty.
Now we create an empire, right? I go back to the Lakers, right? I think about, like, [unintelligible] the hanging from the rafters. So. Yeah, such a good point.
Well, I think we’re gonna put a pin in that, because next week we're picking up all about, like, how do we even create those spaces? So if we’re saying that we want multiple views, multiple….Yeah, just different takes on what we’re doing. Well, that does sort of, in essence, say that there is an aspect of inclusion to that, that I, as a leader, need to set that up intentionally, and I need to act in a way that is going to make people not just hear my words, but actually believe that I mean, what I’m saying.
And that’s all. I mean, we’re talking about organizational culture this week. Next week is all about how do we create that inclusive culture that says, hey, yes, if you disagree, I want that because the outcome is going to be so much better and greater than what if we just sat around and agreed with each other. So cool. Thank you for a conversation this week. Let’s pick it up next week.
Absolutely.
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